2) 

37? 


UC-NRLF 


vO 


THE  SLAVS:  PAST  AND  PRESENT 


LIJDWIK  EHRLICH 


[Reprint  from  the  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  CHRONICLE,  Vol.  XIX,  No.  4] 


THE  SLAVS :  PAST  AND  PRESENT* 

LUDWIK  EHRLICH 


If  any  one  of  you  had  been  told  some  time  ago  that 
there  was  to  be  such  a  thing  as  a  war  which  would  give  the 
Slavs  permanent  importance  in  the  world,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  experienced  a  rather  uncomfortable  feeling.  I 
confess  that  that  would  not  surprise  me  at  all,  because  the 
general  attitude  of  western  Europe  and  of  America  to- 
ward the  Slavs  for  many  generations  has  been  one  of  little 
understanding  and  much  fear.  The  Slavs  usually  have 
been  represented  as  a  group  of  very  low  civilization  and, 
consequently,  as  a  group  of  nations  or  tribes  which  was  a 
distinct  menace  to  all  civilized  nations.  Sometimes  the 
western  neighbors  of  the  Slavs,  the  Germans,  were  trying 
to  sow  discord  between  Russia,  as  representing  the  eastern 
Slavs,  and  Poland,  a  member  of  the  western  Slav  group. 
More  often  all  Slavs  were  described  by  the  Germans  and 
their  friends  as  barbarians  against  whom  the  Germans  had 
to  guard  the  treasures  of  European  science,  art,  and  polit- 
ical institutions. 

No  sooner  had  the  present  war  broken  out  than  the 
famous  German  professor  Von  Harnack  reminded  Ameri- 
cans of  the  Slav  menace:  "But  now  before  my  eyes  I  see 
rising  up  .  .  .  another  culture,  a  culture  of  the  horde  whose 
government  is  patriarchal,  a  civilization  of  the  mob  which 

*  A  lecture  delivered  at  the  University  of  California  on  October 
23,  1917. 


380490 


is  brought  together  and  held  together  by  despots,  the  By- 
zantine— I  must  extend  it  further — Mongolian-Muscovite 
culture.  ...  This  culture  was  not  able  to  bear  the  light 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  still  less  that  of  the  nineteenth, 
and  now,  in  this  twentieth  century,  it  breaks  out  and 
threatens  us — this  unorganized  mob,  this  mob  of  Asia ;  like 
the  sands  of  the  desert  it  would  sweep  down  over  our  har- 
vest fields ;  .  .  .  our  culture,  the  chief  treasure  of  mankind, 
was  in  large  part,  yes,  almost  wholly,  intrusted  to  three 
peoples :  to  us,  to  the  Americans,  and — to  the  English.  .  .  . 
Two  still  remain."1 

I  need  hardly  remind  you  that  this  last  was  a  com- 
ment on  England's  having  "dared"  to  ally  herself  with 
Russia. 

About  the  same  time  two  other  famous  German  scholars, 
Eucken  (professor  of  philosophy  at  Jena)  and  Haeckel 
(professor  of  zoology  at  Jena),  issued  two  appeals  in  which 
they  said :  ' '  England  fights  in  behalf  of  a  Slavic,  half  Asi- 
atic power  against  Germanism2 ;  .  .  .  Russia  .  .  .  wanted  to 
raise  the  Muscovites  against  the  Germans  and  the  Western 
Slavs,  and  to  lead  Asia  into  the  field  against  Europe. ": 
And  in  the  middle  of  1915  a  manifesto  of  numerous  Ger- 
man professors  said  again :  "...  we  Germans  rose  as  one 
man,  from  the  highest  to  the  meanest,  realizing  that  we 
must  defend  not  only  our  external  life  but  also  our  inner, 
spiritual  and  moral  life — in  short,  defend  German  and 
European  Kultur  against  barbarian  hordes  from  the 
east. 

These  words  may  have  had  a  new  meaning  to  you.  To 
us  in  the  east  of  Europe  German  opinions  expressed  in 
such  language  have  been  known  for  centuries.  Whenever 
there  was  a  question  of  extending  German  power  eastward 
there  has  always  been  at  hand  some  one  ready  to  invite  the 

1  New  York  Times  Current  History,  I,  199  f . 

2  Ibid.,  535. 

3  Ibid.,  536. 

4  Ibid.,  Ill,  163. 


Germans  to  defend  their  civilization  against  eastern  bar- 
barians, and  to  invite  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world  to 
help  the  Germans,  or  at  least  not  to  obstruct  them.  The 
martyrdom  of  the  Poles  in  Prussian  Poland,  that  of  the 
Bohemians  in  their  native  country  under  Austrian  sway — 
these  were  stages  in  the  victorious  progress  of  Germanism 
against  Slavic  barbarism.5 

I  suppose  most  of  you  look  at  the  paper  every  morning 
to  see  what  is  happening  in  Russia,  perhaps  with  a  half 
suppressed  wish  that  the  Russian  people  would  postpone 
their  ultra-democracy  for  a  short  time  at  least,  until  Ger- 
many is  defeated.  But  Russia  is  not  the  only  Slav  country. 
There  are  Slav  nations  besides  her,  nations  which  have  con- 
tributed and  will  contribute  to  the  progress  of  the  world. 
Of  many  of  them  you  have  not  heard  much.  At  this  moment 
the  Prussian  eagle  and  his  ally,  the  old,  worn  out  but  ra- 
pacious Austrian  bird,  hold  their  booty  as  tightly  as  they 
can.  Now  and  again  you  hear  a  weak,  a  very  faint  cry  of 
despair,  a  cry  for  help — but  you  hardly  pay  attention  to  it. 


5  It  must  be  said  in  fairness  to  German  scholars  that  such  has 
not  always  been  their  general  attitude  toward  Slavs,  and  toward 
Slav  civilization.  One  of  the  honorable  exceptions  will  be  found 
in  the  following  words  of  Professor  Eoepell  of  Halle,  translated 
from  the  foreword  to  his  History  of  Poland  (1840):  "It  is  not  easy 
for  us  Germans  to  comprehend  and  appreciate  impartially  the  na- 
tional spirit  of  the  Slavs;  but  by  purely  denying,  by  absolutely 
condemning  it,  as  we  find  rather  often  done  these  days,  one 
shall  certainly  not  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  thing.  Every  year  that 
group  of  nations  seems  to  increase  in  political  importance  for  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time  a  new  intellectual  life 
has  begun  to  manifest  itself  at  present,  and  is  apparent  not  less  in 
Bohemia,  Hungary"  (the  author  meant  the  Slavs  under  Hungarian 
rule),  "Galicia,  and  with  the  Poles,  than  in  Kussia,  which  in  a 
certain  way  may  be  considered  as  the  center  of  all  these  strivings. 
With  all  those  tribes  one  can  observe  a  lively,  active  return  to  the 
old  language,  literature,  and  history  of  each  people;  there  appears 
a  multitude  of  new  periodicals,  monuments  of  songs  and  chronicles 
are  being  gathered,  history  is  being  searched;  in  a  word,  they  try 
to  give  new  life  to  the  consciousness  of  their  nationality,  where  it 
is  broken  at  least  to  preserve  it,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  regen- 
erate it,  to  lead  it  toward  a  higher  development,  by  a  more  active 
interest  in  the  learning  and  generally  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
West.  ..."  That  was  some  five  or  six  decades  ago.  How  much 
progress  since! 


And  then  the  hangman  steps  in  over  there — and  everything 
is  quiet — at  least  so  it  seems  to  ill-informed  outsiders. 

You  simply  had  not  been  given  your  opportunity  of 
learning  what  those  various  Slavic  nations  are.  I  do  not 
want  to  give  you  an  idealized  picture  of  a  wonderful  group 
of  nations  which  I  should  describe  to  you  as  Slavs.  I  do 
not  wish  to  deny  that  the  Slavs  have  many  faults,  that  they 
are  often  far  from  the  ideal  at  which  they  aim;  but  I  do 
want  to  say  that  they  are  not  as  uncivilized,  not  as  un- 
worthy of  your  sympathy,  of  your  cooperation,  as  some  of 
you  have  been  led  to  believe.  For  this  purpose  I  shall 
have  to  make  some  reference  to  their  history,  and  to  the 
political  conditions  in  which  they  have  lived  up  to  the 
present  time.  The  Slavs  are  human  beings ;  they  have  com- 
mitted and  are  committing  many  mistakes,  but  they  want 
to  correct  them.  To  err  is  human.  That  is  true  of  every 
nation. 

The  war  has  given  you  an  opportunity  of  learning  about 
the  Slavs.  We  read  every  day  about  Russia.  The  Presi- 
dent of  this  country  many  months  ago  stated,  in  words  which 
make  every  true  Polish  heart  beat  faster,  that  there  must 
be  a  "united,  independent,  and  autonomous  Poland."  You 
have  all  heard  of  the  martyrdom  of  the  Serbians.  And 
more  and  more  urgently  do  the  Bohemians  appeal  to  the 
world  te  help  them  against  Hapsburg  oppression.  The 
opportunity  to  learn  becomes  a  duty  to  learn,  for  no  free 
people  can  watch  leisurely  the  enslavement  of  other  nations 
without  becoming  liable  to  lose  its  own  freedom.  And  so 
the  statesmen  of  this  great  nation  have  assented  to  the 
postulate  of  the  European  Allies  that  there  shall  be  re- 
construction on  the  basis  of  nationality.  This  must  mean, 
among  other  things,  the  liberation  of  the  Slavs  who  are 
now  under  the  German  yoke.  So  the  question  you  have  to 
ask  yourself  is,  Is  it  good  to  help  the  Slavs,  or  is  it  bad  ? 

According  to  a  common  theory,  very  many  centuries 
ago  the  ancestors  of  those  nations  which  we  now  call  Slavs 
lived  in  the  country  now  described  as  Galicia  (Austrian 


Poland).  Some  of  them,  starting  from  that  original  seat, 
went  south  and  occupied  what  is  now  Hungary  and  thence 
went  far  into  the  Balkan  peninsula.  Others  went  west,  far 
beyond  the  territory  in  which  stands  Berlin — no  Germans 
were  there  at  that  time.  Still  others -went  north  and 
east.  The  original  Slavs  were,  of  course,  not  a  civilized 
group  of  tribes.  They  were  barbarians,  just  as  their  west- 
ern neighbors,  the  Germans,  were.  The  Germans  occupied 
the  Roman  Empire,  destroyed  it,  took  over  some  rudiments 
of  what  they  allowed  to  survive  of  Roman  civilization,  and 
at  the  same  time  began  to  press  the  Slavs  back.  They  sub- 
dued the  outlying  Slav  countries  and  turned  the  population 
mostly  into  slaves.  Then  a  German  Roman  Empire  was 
created,  and  on  its  eastern  outskirts  were  formed  marches 
with  the  special  object  of  fighting  the  Slavs.  On  the  other 
hand,  from  Scandinavia  the  Vikings  were  making  their 
way  into  Russia,  while  from  the  east  Mongolic  invaders, 
Bulgars  and  Magyars  (the  modern  Hungarians)  were  at- 
tacking the  southern  Slavs,  the  Magyars  conquering  Hun- 
gary while  the  Bulgars  subdued  some  of  the  Balkan  Slavs 
(seventh  century  A.D.).  The  Magyars  extirpated  some  of 
the  Slavs  they  conquered  and  turned  others  into  a  subject 
population  (ninth  and  tenth  centuries  A..D.).  While  those 
unfortunate  victims  have  kept  their  Slavic  tongue,  the  Mag- 
yars have  stuck  to  their  own  language,  which  they  still 
speak  today.  The  Bulgars  accepted  the  language  of  the 
conquered  tribes  and  both  groups  came  finally  to  form  one 
nation  partly  of  Mongolic,  partly  of  Slavic,  descent,  but 
speaking  a  Slav  tongue.  Similar  was  the  history  of  the 
Vikings  in  Russia.  They  organized  the  country  into  what 
we  might  call  a  political  unit  (ninth  century).  The  organ- 
ization was  Norse,  the  bulk  of  the  people  Slavic,  the  lan- 
guage of  the  whole  was  Slavic  —  Russian. 

The  organization  of  Polish  and  Bohemian  tribes  pro- 
ceeded on  different  lines.  Both  nations  were  united  by  the 
leaders  of  aboriginal  tribes,  who  had  proved  the  most  effi- 
cient organizers  in  the  defense  against  the  Germans,  but 


8 


had  thereby  also  acquired  enough  power  to  conquer  their 
own  brethren.  Serbian  unity  was  likewise  the  result  of 
what  is  called  "union  from  wit-bin/'  that  is,  union  by  native 
organizers,  and  not  by  foreigners. 

There  is  hardly  a  possibility  of  exaggerating  the  im- 
portance of  geographical  position  in  the  history  of  those 
early  Slavic  organizations.  If  you  can  picture  a  map  of 
the  central  and  eastern  part  of  Europe,  with  the  Slavs 
occupying  all  the  country  from  the  west  of  Berlin  to  the 
east  of  Moscow,  you  will  perceive  that  the  western  group  of 
the  Slavs  was  close  to  Italy,  the  heart  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
while  the  eastern  Slavs  were  close  to  Constantinople,  the 
capital  city  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire.  Poles  (966 
A.D.),  Bohemians,  and  the  western  group  of  the  southern 
Slavs  (now  known  as  Slovenes  and  Croats)  accepted  Chris- 
tianity from  Rome,  accepted  the  Roman-Latin  alphabet,  and 
became  western  in  their  civilization.  Russia  (988  A.D.) 
and  the  rest  of  the  southern  Slavs  accepted  ultimately,  after 
some  hesitation,  the  eastern  Christian  religion,  the  Orthodox 
faith  as  represented  by  Constantinople;  they  accepted  the 
eastern  script  (specially  adapted  to  Slavic  sounds)  and, 
generally  speaking,  accepted  the  eastern  civilization  as  it 
existed  in  the  Eastern  Empire. 

This  was  the  way  in  which  the  group  of  Slavs,  homo- 
geneous at  first  perhaps,  was  organized  into  separate  polit- 
ical units,  generally  divided  by  differences  of  religion  and 
of  civilization,  heirs  to  the  quarrel  between  Rome  and  Con- 
stantinople. The  story  of  their  misfortunes  was  not  at  an 
end.  It  has  been  their  history  up  to  the  present  moment. 

First  of  all,  in  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century 
Poland  and  Russia  were  visited  by  a  great  calamity  in  the 
shape  of  a  new  wave  of  Mongolic  invaders  from  the  east — 
the  Tartars.  If  I  wanted  to  be  very  cruel  to  the  memory 
of  the  Tartars,  I  should  be  justified  in  saying  that  -they 
behaved  about  as  the  Germans  have  now  behaved  in  Bel- 
gium, Poland,  and  Northern  France.  You  can  not  imagine 
the  measure  of  destruction  they  wrought.  They  destroyed 


the  cities  across  which  they  came,  they  carried  off  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  at  first  it  seemed  as  though  there 
were  no  power  on  earth  strong  enough  to  resist  them. 
They  had  a  very  efficient  military  organization  and  the 
wildness  of  their  attack  made  all  resistance  impossible,  just 
as  if  they  had  unexpectedly  let  loose  clouds  of  poisonous 
gases.  Finally  Poland,  whom  they  attacked  after  having 
converted  Russia  practically  into  a  desert,  collected  as  many 
forces  as  she  could  and  after  desperate  efforts  succeeded, 
not  in  beating  the  Tartars,  but  in  stopping  them.  The 
Tartars  turned  back  and  went  east.  But  they  kept  Russia 
in  subjection  for  two  centuries,  and  continued  to  attack 
Poland  even  later,  one  may  say  down  to  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  was  mainly  in  order  to  get  rid  of  their  yoke 
that  the  princes  of  Moscow,  who  were  their  vassals,  organ- 
ized despotic  rule  within  their  country,  and  acquired  con- 
trol over  the  other  Russian  principalities.  Finally  the 
Tartars  ceased  to  be  Russia's  overlords,  but,  once  it  was 
acquired,  the  princes  of  Moscow  did  not  give  up  their  great 
political  power.  The  organization  of  the  country,  originally 
very  democratic,  had  been  changed  into  a  despotism,  under 
the  influence  of  Tartar  example,  to  defeat  the  Tartars  with 
their  own  weapon — that  of  a  strong  war  machine.  I  must 
add  that  the  theory  of  despotism  was  supplied  to  the  princes 
of  Russia,  who  soon  began  to  style  themselves  Tsars  (from 
Caesar),  by  Byzantine  writers,  subservient  to  the  Eastern 
Emperors. 

To  make  good  the  losses  caused  by  the  Tartars,  Poland 
allowed  German  colonists  to  come  in.  Germany  had  not 
been  affected  by  the  Tartar  invasions,  and  she  never  ex- 
perienced any  afterwards.  Poland,  in  addition  to  suffering 
awful  devastation  at  the  hands  of  the  Tartars,  had  to  learn 
later  on  that  the  German  settlers  had  "taught  her  civil- 
ization"— for  that  is  what  the  Germans  have  never  ceased 
to  claim !  Such  was  the  gratitude  of  the  German  colonists. 
In  fact,  the  country  had  been  flourishing  before  the  Tartar 
invasions — but  what  was  she  to  do  when  hardly  a  stone 
remained  in  its  place  ? 


10 


Then,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  Slavs  were  faced 
by  another  danger — the  Turks.  The  Turks  conquered  Ser- 
bia and  Bulgaria  in  the  course  of  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries.  Europe  was  afraid  and  Poland  accepted 
invitations  from  the  west  to  help.  A  Polish  king,  elected 
king  of  Hungary,  went,  fought,  and  perished.  The  Poles 
continued  to  fight  against  the  Turks  until  the  Turks,  who 
at  first  had  not  attacked  Poland,  turned  against  her.  They 
were  deadly  enemies  indeed.  Their  invasions  lasted 
throughout  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  One 
would  have  to  be  a  very  good  orator  or  a  very  brilliant 
novelist  to  do  justice  to  all  the  romantic  deeds  which  cov- 
ered the  arms  of  Poland  with  glory.  You  know  only  of  a 
few  incidents  (such  as  the  rescue  of  Vienna  by  King  So- 
bieski  in  1683),  but  the  story  was  a  continuous  one.  When 
Poland  herself  was  in  danger  she  could  not  count  on  any 
help  from  the  west.  When  you  are  told  that  the  southern 
Slavs  have  not  a  very  high  civilization  nowadays,  and  when 
you  hear  people  talk  with  contempt  of  the  political  insti- 
tutions of  Poland — why  not  remember  that  Serbia  was  for 
four  or  five  centuries  a  conquered  province  in  the  hands  of 
the  Turk,  and  that  Poland  was  for  four  or  five  centuries  a 
camp  of  defenders  not  only  of  that  unfortunate  country 
but  of  western  civilization  as  a  whole  ?  In  sowing  their  land 
the  Polish  farmers  were  never  sure  that  after  a  month, 
perhaps  after  a  fortnight,  the  house  would  still  stand  un- 
burned,  that  a  single  soul  would  remain  alive.  A  short 
war  produces  far-reaching  results  in  the  life  of  a  country — 
how  much  more  so  a  war  which  lasts  for  centuries ! 

And  the  Tartars,  the  Turks,  were  not  the  only  enemies. 
The  Germans  from  the  west  were  pressing  harder  and 
harder.  At  first  themselves  nothing  but  barbarous  hordes, 
they  had  extirpated  the  -Slavs  who  were  living  on  the  Elbe 
(the  so-called  Polab  Slavs),  and  attacked  those  who  lived 
farther  east.  The  countries  now  known  as  the  Mecklen- 
burgs,  Pomerania,  and  Saxony  were  among  the  early  victims. 
In  the  meantime  the  Germans  had  come  to  regard  themselves 


11 


as  a  civilized  group,  as  defenders  of  Christianity,  and  their 
wars  on  the  Slavs  were  then  waged  in  the  name  of  Chris- 
tianity and  civilization.  Bohemia  became  Christian  (ninth 
century)  ;  Poland,  probably  through  the  influence  of  Bo- 
hemia, became  Christian  (966  A.D.)  ;  but  the  fighting  went 
on.  At  first  it  was  done  by  the  emperors  themselves  or  by 
some  margraves  whom  they  had  authorized.  Later  on,  the 
Teutonic  Knights,  an  order  of  fighting  monks  whom  a  Pol- 
ish prince  had  allowed  to  settle  (first  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century)  in  the  northern  part  of  Poland,  now  known  as 
East  Prussia,  took  over  the  "mission".  They  waged  wars 
with  a  cruelty  which  could  hardly  be  surpassed.  By  a 
supreme  effort  Poland,  united  with  Lithuania,  defeated 
them  in  the  memorable  battle  of  Grunwald  and  Tannenberg 
(1410).  Afterward  they  still  continued  their  gruesome 
expeditions,  but  finally  had  to  become  (as  a  secularized 
duchy)  a  vassal  state  of  Poland  (1525).  They  threw  off 
allegiance  to  Poland  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  the 
eighteenth  century  the  "King  of  Prussia"  (a  new  title 
assumed  in  1701  by  the  Duke  of  Prussia,  whose  predecessor 
had  been  the  last  Grand  Master  of  the  Knights  and  had 
secularized  the  order)  was  one  of  the  chief  participants  in 
the  partitions  of  Poland. 

1526  the  Bohemian  diet  elected  a  German,  a  Haps- 
burg  ruler  of  Austria,  to  the  Bohemian  throne.  Very  soon 
the  new  rulers  started  out  to  curtail  the  privileges  of  the 
country,  the  political  life  of  which  was  very  active.  The 
throne  remained  elective,  but  in  1620,  when  the  Bohem- 
ians tried  to  shake  off  the  yoke,  the  battle  of  the  White 
Mountain  put  an  end  to  Bohemian  freedom  for  over  two 
centuries.  Most  of  the  nobility  perished  either  in  battle  or 
on  the  scaffold,  a  ruthless  reaction  set  in,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  political  troubles  of  the  Hapsburgs  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  that  Bohemia  was  allowed  to  breathe  a  little 
more  freely,  though  she  is  still  pining  for  real  liberty  in 
the  civilized  sense  of  the  word. 

Since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  (the  beginning  of  the 


eighteenth  century)  the  influence  of  Germans  in  Russia 
had  been  growing.  The  German  element  was  gaining  pre- 
dominance in  the  bureaucracy,  marriages  with  German 
princes  and  princesses  were  contracted  by  members  of  the 
dynasty;  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  male  line  of  the 
house  of  Romanov  (which  had  been  on  the  throne  since 
1613)  died  out,  and  by  the  marriage  of  a  Romanov  heiress 
with  a  member  of  the  Oldenburg  dynasty  the  house  of 
Holstein-Gottorp,  a  new  dynasty,  a  German  one,  came  to 
the  throne  in  1762.  Thus  the  last  Tsar  of  Russia,  Nicolas 
II,  was  in  the  male  line  not  a  Romanov,  but  a  Holstein- 
Gottorp.  It  will  be  unnecessary  to  remind  you,  moreover, 
that  Catharine  II  was  a  German  woman,  who  had  married 
a  Holstein-Gottorp  Tsar. 

The  German  Catharine  II,  the  German  Frederick  II, 
and  the  German  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria  were  the  three 
potentates  who  in  1772  began  the  partitions  of  Poland. 
Only  eighty-nine  years  had  elapsed  since  Sobieski,  king 
of  Poland,  had  saved  Vienna  from  the  Turks !  Prussia  and 
Austria  united  with  the  ruler  of  Russia — that  country 
with  the  " culture  of  the  horde,"  with  the  "civilization 
of  the  mob  which  is  brought  together  and  held  together  by 
despots, ' '  as  Professor  von  Harnack  tried  to  explain  to  you 
in  the  beginning  of  this  war.  Prussia  and  Austria  did  not 
shrink  from  an  alliance  with  Russia,  and  intended  to  put 
an  end  to  the  political  existence  of  Poland,  a  country  of 
western  Slavs  with  an  entirely  western  civilization.  It  was 
not  until  1914  that  German  professors  discovered  that  one 
should  not  "raise  the  Muscovites  against  .  .  .  the  western 
Slavs,  and  .  .  .  lead  Asia  into  the  field  against  Europe." 
The  explanation  is  simple.  For  the  purpose  of  the  parti- 
tions of  Poland  it  was  in  the  interest  of  Prussia  to  ally 
herself  with  Russia ;  so  an  alliance  with  Russia  was  right. 
In  1914rftlussia  wanted  to  get  American  condemnation  of 
England ;  so  an  alliance  with  Russia  was  wrong. 

It  is  sometimes  claimed  that  the  partitions  of  Poland 
were  necessary  because  of  Polish  "anarchy."  Can  any  one 


13 


imagine  a  worse  anarchy  than  that  which  existed  for  cen- 
turies in  the  territory  called  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  of  the 
German  nation?  The  partitions  of  Poland  were  a  matter 
of  brute  force  and  nothing  else.6. 

And  the  partitions  of  Poland  were  not  the  last  instance 
of  a  German  appeal  for  Russian  help.  Prussia  and  Austria 
were  not  ashamed  to  fight  side  by,  side  with  Russia  against 
Napoleon.  Prussia  was  not  ashamed  to  help  Russia 
against  the  Poles  in  their  revolutions  of  1830-1  and 
1863. 7  And  the  Hapsburgs  were  not  ashamed  to  accept 
the  help  of  Russia  against  the  Hungarian  insurgents  of 
1848-9.  At  that  time  it  was  to  the  Russian  commander 
and  not  to  the  Austrians  that  the  Hungarians  had  to  sur- 
render. And  that  "friendship"  for  Russia,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  habit  of  helping  the  Tsar  and  his  government 
and  receiving  help  from  them  whenever  there  threatened 
some  democratic  movement  for  emancipation,  for  instance, 
some  strenuous  Polish  efforts,  continued  until  the  very  be- 
ginning of  the  present  war.  How  else  can  you  explain  the 
following  passage  in  a  telegram  which  the  German  Em- 
peror sent  to  the  late  Tsar,  Nicolas  II,  on  July  31,  1914: 
"The  friendship  for  you  and  your  country,  bequeathed  to 
me  by  my  grandfather  on  his  deathbed,  has  always  been 
sacred  to  me,  and  I  have  stood  faithfully  by  Russia  while 
it  was  in  serious  affliction,  especially  during  its  last  war?" 


6  See  the  speech  by  C.  J.  Fox  on  February  18,  1793,  Hansard's 
Parliamentary  History,  XXX,  428  ff.     The   speech   is  illuminating 
if  one  wants  to  understand  Prussian  behavior  during  and  before 
the  present  war. 

7  See,  e.g.,  Die  PolitiscJien  Eeden  des  Fiirsten  von  BismarcJc,  II, 
114  ff.,  lllff. 

s  "German  White  Book,"  Introduction.  Cf.  ibid.,  exhibit  20.  It 
is  worth  while  to  note  that  late  in  March,  1917,  the  German  Imperial 
Chancellor  is  said  to  have  "referred  to  Germany's  attitude  toward 
recent  events  in  Russia  and  recalled  the  honored  friendship  between  the 
two  countries  in  former  times.  He  said,  however,  that  this  friendship 
ended  with  the  death  of  Alexander  II"  (New  York  Times,  March  30, 
1917,  p.  1,  col.  8).  Now,  Alexander  II  died  in  1881,  and  William  II 's 
grandfather  lay  on  his  deathbed  in  1888.  How  could  he  bequeath 
to  his  grandson  a  friendship  which,  the  Chancellor  now  claims,  had 
terminated  seven  years  before?  And  how  could  the  present  Em- 
peror regard  that  long  extinct  friendship  as  sacred? 


14 


This  refers  to  the  affliction  of  the  dynasty  during  the 
Kusso- Japanese  war;  the  German  Emperor  obviously  had 
not  given  military  assistance  against  the  Japanese,  for  he 
was  neutral !  We  in  eastern  Europe,  however,  have  known 
all  the  time  that  German  helped  Kussia  in  putting  down  the 
revolution.  Moreover,  is  it  not  interesting  to  read  those 
professions  of  long-standing  friendship,  made  two  weeks 
before  the  German  professors  started  their  thundering  exe- 
crations of  a  "civilization  of  the  mob  which  is  brought 
together  and  held  together  by  despots,  the  .  .  .  Mongolian- 
Muscovite  culture, ' '  etc.  ? 

Ethnographically9  the  Slavs  at  present  can  be  divided 
into  four  big  groups.  The  eastern  or  Russian  group  is 
composed  of  three  elements:  the  Great  Russian  (north  and 
center),  the  "White  Russian  (west),  and  the  Little  Russian 
(also  called  Ruthene,  a  name  appearing  in  Latin  in  the 
fourteenth  century)  or  Ukrainian  (the  Ukraine,  or  "Bor- 
derland," is  a  southern  part  of  modern" Russia).  It  is  not 
easy  to  determine  with  the  help  of  the  statistics  available 
how  many  millions  of  the  Russian  population  are  Little  Rus- 
sian rather  than  Great  Russian.  The  former,  however,  can 
be  estimated  broadly  at  some  twenty-five  to  thirty  million. 
For  a  long  time  there  has  been  a  violent  dispute,  mostly 
literary  but  in  places  political,  whether  the  Little  Russians 
form  a  separate  nation  (as  some  of  them  claim)  or  whether 
their  language  is  only  a  dialect  of  the  Russian  language  and 

o  The  following  figures  are  intended  to  show  approximately  the 
present  distribution  of  Slavic  nations  among  political  units  and 
their  proportion  to  the  German  and  Magyar  element  in  Austria- 
Hungary.  It  is  impossible  to  obtain  absolutely  reliable  statistics. 

1.  Serbia,  about  5,000,000. 

2.  Montenegro,  about  500,000  (almost  all  Serbs). 

3.  Bulgaria,  about  5,000,000. 

4.  Eussian  Empire,  about  180,000,000:    Great  Eussians,  80,000,- 
000;  White  Eussians,  8,000,000;  Euthjenes  (Little  Eussians),  25,000,- 
000;  Poles,  12,000,000. 

5.  Poles:  Austria,  5,000,000;  Hungary,  100,000;  Germany,  4,000,- 
000.     Czechs  and  Slovaks:   Austria,  6,500,000;   Hungary,  2,050,000; 
Germany,  130,000.     Serbs,  Croats,  and  Slovenes:  Austria,  2,036,000; 
Hungary,  2,939,000;  Bosnia,  1,800,000.     Euthenes:  Austria,  3,600,000; 
Hungary,  475,000.    Germans:  Austria,  10,000,000;  Hungary,  2,050,000. 
Magyars:  Austria,  11,000;  Hungary,  10,050,000. 


15 


their  national  customs  only  those  of  one  part  of  the  great 
Russian  nation.  Without  expressing  any  opinion  on  the 
main  question,  I  wish  to  say  that  the  leaders  of  the  Ukraine 


q    R    El    A    T 


L  I   T  T    L    E. 

"      RUSSIANS 
V-'v-,"-,  "SLOVAKS  N  LITTLE.  ^RUSSIANS 


Map  1 — The  Slavs  and  their  neighbors. 

The  map  shows  those  parts  of  central  and  eastern  Europe  in  which  the 
Slavs  form  at  least  the  majority  of  the  population.  In  the  adjoining  districts 
Slavs  form  more  or  less  strong  minorities. 

movement  (not  the  Little  Russian  people),  especially  in 
Galicia,  have  often  taken  an  anti-Russian  and  pro-German 
point  of  view..  That  was  true  even  long  before  the  war. 
Their  language  differs  from  Great  Russian  in  many  details 
(the  accent  is  sometimes  different ;  the  script  is  modified  and 
spelling  is  phonetic,  whereas  in  great  Russian  it  is  etymolog- 


16 

ical;  there  are  differences  in  pronunciation;  for  instance, 
Great  Russian  has  almost  always  a  g  where  Little  Russian 
has  an  h ;  the  accent  is  often  differently  placed ;  many  Great 
Russian  words  are  replaced  by  others  of  Polish  origin). 
The  Russians  .are  mostly  Orthodox,  but  some  millions  of 
Little  and  White  Russians  are  Catholic,  either  with  the  pure 
Latin  rite  or  with  a  peculiar  rite  in  which  Church-Slavic 
is  used ;  in  the  latter  case  their  hierarchy  has  certain  special 
privileges  recognized  by  Rome;  for  example,  there  is  a 
possibility  of  conferring  the  order  of  priesthood  on  married 
persons.  The  Provisional  Government  of  Russia  has  lately 
recognized  the  claim  of  Little  Russians  to  autonomy,  and 
has  granted  autonomy  to  the  "governments"  (administra- 
tive provinces)  of  Kiev,  Volhynia,  Podolia,  Tshernikhov, 
and  to  all  other  provinces  in  which  the  zemstvos  demand  it. 

The  Poles  are  mostly  Roman  Catholics,  though  there  are 
Protestants  and  Jews.  The  Poles,  whose  civilization  is 
entirely  western,  use  the  Latin  alphabet,  and  the  language 
contains  both  h  and  g ;  the  accent  in  all  words  with  more 
than  one  syllable  falls  on  the  last  but  one.  The  Germans 
have  been  trying  to  distinguish  between  Poles  proper  and 
the  Mazurs  and  Kaszubs,  in  order  to  lessen  in  their 
statistics  the  number  of  Poles  in  the  Polish  provinces  of 
the  empire.  The  distinction  is  similar  to  one  that  might 
be  made  between  the  language  of  the  United  States  and 
that  of  the  Kentucky  mountains. 

The  Bohemian  group  includes  not  only  the  Bohemians 
and  the  Moravians  (another  name  for  the  Bohemian,  or 
Czech,  inhabitants  of  Moravia)  but  also  the  Slovaks  of 
northern  Hungary.  Some  of  the  most  important  Bohemian 
leaders,  such  as  the  famous  gafarik,  were  Slovaks.  The  Bo- 
hemians are  almost  exclusively  Roman  Catholic.  They  use 
the  western  alphabet ;  the  accent  in  their  words  always  falls 
on  the  first  syllable  and  an  h  is  always  found  where  in 
Russian  there  is  a  g. 

The  southern  Slavs  have  long  been  divided  in  religion 
and  in  the  use  of  alphabet.  The  Serbs  and  Croats  speak 


the  same  language ;  but  while  some  of  them  are  Moham- 
medan, the  rest  of  the  Serbs  are.  mainly  Orthodox  and  use 
the  eastern  script;  the  Croats  are  Catholic  and  use  the 
western  script.  The  latter  they  share  with  the  Slovenes, 
whose  language  is  a  dialect  of  the  Serbo-Croat  language 
and  whose  religion  is  Catholic.  The  differences  of  religion 
have  long  been  the  favorite  means  by  which  the  Hapsburgs 
have  been  trying  to  separate  the  three  representatives  of 
the  southern  Slav  family.  Recently  the  representatives  of 
those  three  groups  met  on  the  island  of  Corfu  and  adopted 
a  programme  of  political  union  and  freedom,  for  which  they 
crave  the  endorsement  of  the  civilized  world.  Their  position 
in  politics  and  law  is  now  deplorable  as  is  that  of  all  the 
other  Slavs. 

It  is  only  the  eastern  group  of  Slavs  that  has  for  some 
time  formed  a  political  unit,  the  Russian  Empire,  even  so 
under  the  rule  of  a  German  and  pro-German  dynasty  and 
bureaucracy.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  Russian  Poland, 
Germans  enjoyed  much  more  influence  with  the  government 
than  the  Poles !  Of  the  whole  eastern  group,  only  some 
four  million  Ruthenes  live  partly  under  Austrian,  partly 
under  Hungarian,  domination. 

The  Poles  are,  on  the  other  hand,  in  a  most  unfortu- 
nate position.  A  proud  nation  which  once  was  among  the 
most  powerful  in  Europe  is  now  divided  into  three  parts — 
one  under  Russian,  the  other  under  Austrian,  the  third 
under  Prussian  domination.  In  the  Austrian  "share"  of 
Poland  is  included  not  only  Galicia  but  also  part  of  Silesia. 
That  part  of  Poland  under  German  rule  comprises  not 
only  the  Prussian  province  of  "Posen,"  but  also  Prussian 
Silesia  (the  eastern  part  of  which  is  overwhelmingly  Polish ; 
the  coal  mines  situated  there  are  the  chief  reason  why  Ger- 
many dreads  its  loss)  ;  West  Prussia;  with  the  city  of 
Gdansk  (Dantzick),  which  at  the  time  of  the  partitions 
violently  opposed  Prussian  occupation10  and  for  a  long 
time  previously  had  favored  the  nationalist  element  in 

10  See,  e.g.,  Lord,  The  Second  Partition  of  Poland,  394. 


18 


Poland  (for  instance,  at  the  elections  of  Polish  kings)  ;  and 
parts  of  the  province  of  East  Prussia. 

Almost  the  whole  territory  of  which  the  Bohemians  are 
natives  is  now  under  the  rule  of  Austria  and  (Slovaks)  of 
Hungary. 


(Great,  White,   Little) 
Russians. 


Poles.  WW-fflfa      Bohemians 

S^"^          ,.  KWfm      and  Slovaks. 

r- t      Southern  Slavs   (Slovenes, 

^="-=1  Serbs,  Croats)  llllllllHillil       Bulgarians. 

Territories  with  Slavic  majority. 

Map  2 — Slavic  territories  in  European  states  (1914). 
—  ••  —  ••  —  ••  —  ..  —  borders    between    states. 


border    between    Austria,    Hungary,    and    Bosnia-Herz- 
egovina. 

borders    between    nationalities    within    the    same    state 
(not  between  states). 


19 


The  southern  Slavs  in  the  broader  sense  of  the  word 
include  the  semi-Slavic  Bulgarians,  who  in  the  nineteenth 
and  twentieth  centuries  were  emancipated  from  the  Turkish 
yoke;  and  the  southern  Slavs  proper,  of  whose  number 
only  those  Serbs  living  in  the  country  known  as  Monte- 
negro have  practically  always  been  independent  of  Turkey. 
The  kingdom  of  Serbia  was  emancipated  in  the  course  of 
the  nineteenth  century;  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  passed 
from  the  Turkish  under  the  Austro-Hungarian  yoke  ("oc- 
cupation" 1878,  "annexation"  1908)  ;  part  of  Serbian  ter- 
ritory forms  the  kingdom  of  Croatia  and  Slavonia  (under 
Hungarian  domination)  ;  another  part  is  incorporated  in 
the  kingdom  of  Hungary  itself;  still  other  Serbo-Croat 
lands,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Slovenes,  are  organized  as 
provinces  of  what  is  popularly  called  Austria,  or  the  Aus- 
trian part  of  the  Hapsburg  monarchy.  In  most  cases  the 
Slovenes  are  inhabitants  of  provinces  of  which  another  part 
is  German  or  Italian,  so  that  the  Hapsburgs  can  foster 
national  differences  and  prevent  an  understanding  between 
the  subject  races,  or  can  rely  on  the  German  as  against  the 
Slavic  element. 

In  all  those  countries  where  the  Slavs  are  not  left 
to  themselves  there  has  been  boundless  oppression.  How 
could  I  within  a  few  seconds  describe  to  you  all  the  un- 
speakable horrors  of  the  Austrian  regime  in  Bohemia,  in 
Galicia,  among  the  southern  Slavs  before  the  Hapsburg 
organization  went  to  pieces  in  the  wars  with  Italy,  France, 
and  Prussia,  and  a  "constitutional  regime"  had  to  be  in- 
augurated (in  the  sixties  of  the  nineteenth  century)  ?  How 
am  I  to  mention  to  you  in  a  short  time  all  the  breaches  of 
solemn  promises,  of  statutes,  of  constitutional  documents 
which  have  repeatedly  been  committed  since  then?  Can 
you  picture  the  tragedy  of  the  present  war,  in  which  (un- 
like the  English  rule  in  Ireland,  where  there  is  no  com- 
pulsory military  service)  Austria  has  drawn  the  main  body 
of  her  armies  from  the  Slavic  conscripts  and  Germany  has 
compelled  her  (conscripted)  Polish  regiments  to  fight 


20 


against  those  from  whom  Poland  expects  her  liberty  ?  Oh. 
there  can  indeed  be  no  greater  grief!  Nessun  maggior 
dolore.  .  .  . 

But  I  have  been  speaking  of  the  Slavs  in  a  way  which 
might  lead  you  to  ask  whether  there  is  a  common  Slav  group 
consciousness.  From  the  time  of  the  national  separation 
of  the  different  groups  such  a  common  consciousness  be- 
tween all  groups  has  hardly  existed.  Difficulties  of  com- 
munication, differences  of  religion,  of  civilization,  of  polit- 
ical interests,  separated  the  Slav  groups.  In  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  two  tendencies  became  apparent, 
both  of  them  called  "Pan-Slavic."  You  should  be  careful 
to  distinguish  between  them. 

One  was  the  purely  political  dream  of  Orthodox  Tsar- 
dom  and  its  supporters.  It  was  the  dream  of  uniting  all 
Slavs  under  .Russia's  leadership,  probably  with  Orthodoxy 
as  their  religion.  The  other  tendency  was  one  which  has 
received  more  or  less  qualified  assent  in  all  Slavic  groups. 
It  is  based  on  the  consciousness  of  a  common  origin,  of 
common  roots  in  the  different  Slavic  languages,  of  a  need 
of  common  defense  against  common  enemies,  whether  Turks 
or  Germans;  it  aims  at  securing  for  the  Slavs  recognition 
as  fully  privileged  members  of  the  community  of  nations. 
Why  should  the  English,  German,  French,  and  Italian  lan- 
guages be  the  only  ones  admissible  in  international  con- 
gresses, to  the  exclusion  of  Russian  and  Polish?  Why 
should  the  Slavs  remain  unknown,  detested,  slandered, 
barely  tolerated  whenever  the  history  of  civilization  is  dis- 
cussed ?  Why  should  the  civilized  world  endorse  or  silently 
overlook  their  martyrdom  at  the  hands  of  Germany  and 
Austria-Hungary?  These  and  similar  questions  have  led 
to  the  formation  of  different  Slav  societies  of  mutual  help, 
to  the  organization  of  Slav  congresses,  and  so  forth.  Would 
that  there  should  result  from  this  war  a  permanent  feder- 
ation of  the  Slavs,  and  their  federation  with  the  other 
civilized  nations  into  a  federation  of  the  world! 


The  other  civilized  nations  ?  But  are  the  Slavs  civilized  ? 
What  have  they  done  for  civilization  ? 

I  should  like  to  remind  you  again  of  the  difficulties  of 
development.  Here  was  Russia,  for  more  than  two  cen- 
turies under  the  overlordship  of  the  Tartars.  That  was  a 
circumstance  certainly  not  intended  to  help  promote  civil- 
ization. The  consequences  of  the  Tartar  period  naturally 
lived  much  longer  than  Tartar  domination  itself.  There 
was  Serbia,  under  Turkish  rule  until  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  Germans  seem  to  object  to  Great  Britain 's  action 
in  introducing  Hindu  troops  into  the  war.  And  yet  I  claim 
that  if  a  power  could  do  anything  to  destroy  its  own  claims 
to  civilization,  that  would  be  an  alliance  with  the  Turks, 
the  old  enemies  of  European  civilization,  the  old  assailants 
of  Christendom.  It  is  not  many  centuries  since  Austria 
had  to  be  defended  by  the  Poles  against  Turkey — now 
Austria,  Germany,  and  Turkey  (with  another  semi-Mongolic 
group,  the  Bulgars)  are  happily  united  in  an  alliance 
against  the  civilized  world.  Perhaps  one  should  not  wonder 
at  that,  seeing  what  the  record  of  the  Hapsburgs  them- 
selves has  been.  For  there,  again,  was  Bohemia,  with  her 
old  liberties  trampled  under  foot,  with  her  best  children 
literally  mowed  down,  for  two  and  a  half  centuries — a 
helpless  victim  in  the  hands  of  her  Hapsburg  rulers. 

And  to  remind  you  of  still  further  difficulties,  there 
was  Poland,  constantly  struggling,  now  with  the  Tartars, 
now  with  the  Turks.  The  downfall  of  the  Polish  cities, 
especially  in  the  east,  was  due  very  largely  to  the  establish- 
ment of  Turkish  rule  in  Constantinople  (1453)  and  on  the 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  but  Poland's  fight  against  the 
Turks,  the  expedition  of  the  Polish  (and  Hungarian)  king 
in  1444  which  resulted  in  his  death,  and  the  rescue  of 
Vienna  by  Sobieski,  were  only  episodes  in  a  long  series  of 
struggles  undertaken  at  first,  and  very  often  later  on,  out 
of  pure  idealism,  out  of  a  desire  to  rid  civilization  of  the 
Turkish  menace.  Nevertheless,  Poland  had  at  the  same  time 
to  defend  herself  against  the  Germans  on  her  western 


22 

border :  at  first  it  was  the  newly  created  Empire,  then  the 
Teutonic  Knights,  also  called  Knights  of  the  Cross  (their 
sign,  the  Black  Cross  which  they  wore  on  their  white  gowns, 
is  still  a  symbol  of  German  militarism,  and  appears,  for 
instance,  on  the  German  airplanes).  And  then  for  the 
Knights  of  the  Crosyvas  substituted  (a  change  in  name, 
but  not  in  spirit)  the*Russian  state,  which  was  instrumental 
in  bringing  about  the  partitions  of  Poland  in  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Since  those  days  there  has  been  op- 
pression by  the  three  partitioning  powers,  at  first  by  Austria 
and  Prussia  more  than  by  Russia,  then  especially  by  Austria, 
then  by  Austria  and  Russia  more  than  by  Prussia,  and  then 
by  Prussia  more  than  by  any  other.  Prussia  has  not  only 
oppressed  the  Poles  in  the  parts  of  Poland  which  she  occu- 
pies. She  has  also  backed  Aip  Russia,  down  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  present  war.  And  this  "friendship"  for  the  Tsar's 
government  has  been  another  difficulty  in  the  way  of  Slav 
development. 

Despite  all  these  difficulties*  the  Slavs  have  helped  civil- 
ization. They  have  helped  it,  first  of  all,  by  defending  it, 
as  well  as  defending  their  own  homesteads,  against  Tartars 
and  Turks.  That  was  true  especially  of  Russia  and  Poland  ; 
Serbia  was  a  great,  heroic  victim  of  the  Turkish  onslaught 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  as  she  has  become  one  of  the 
victims  of  the  Teutonic  onslaught  in  the  twentieth  century. 
But  the  Slavs  have  also  helped  to  develop  European  civil- 
ization positively. 

It  is  not  claimed  by  any  sensible  person  that  the  Slavs 
are  not  indebted  to  other  nations  and  groups  of  nations. 
The  Slavs  have  taken  over  western  and  eastern  civilization, 
that  of  Rome  and  that. of  Byzantium,  just  as  Rome  was 
indebted  to  Greece,  and  France  and  England  to  Italy.  Nor 
do  the  Slavs  claim  that  they  have  not  learned  from  the 
Germans.  They  have. 

But  this  is  no  reason  why  the  Germans  should  claim 
that  they  are  entitled  to  dominate  the  Slavs.  Because  the 
Slavs  have  been  received  later  into  the  circle  of  European 


nations,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  must  submit  to  German 
domination,  that  they  have  no  right  to  a  free  development. 
Did  not  the  Germans,  as  a  group  of  barbarous  tribes,  at- 
tack, molest,  destroy  the  old  Roman  Empire?  Did  they 
not  take  over  the  fruits  of  the  development  of  civilization 
in  ancient  Rome  and  in  medieval  Italy?  Are  they  not 
most  heavily  indebted  to  the  civilization  of  France  and  of 
England  ?  Why  do  they  not  submit  to  Italy,  or  to  France, 
or  to  England  ?  Because  you  are  some  one 's  teacher,  this 
does  not  make  you  his  master,  it  does  not  turn  him  into 
a  slave  of  yours.  To  promote  civilization  is  every  nation's 
duty,  but  it  does  not  give  rights  of  overlordship ;  that  is 
what  the  Germans  have  never  been  able  to  understand.11 


11  Just  twenty  years  ago  the  famous  German  historian,  Theodor 
Mommsen,  issued  an  appeal  to  the  Germans  in  Austria,  inciting 
them  to  a  fight  against  the  (western)  Slavs  (which  meant  especially. 
Bohemians,  Slovenes,  and  Poles).  He  drew  forth  a  spirited  reply 
from  one  of  the  most  glorious  scholars  in  modern  Slavdom,  my  be- 
loved teacher  Oswald  Balzer,  professor  of  Polish  legal  history  in 
the  University  of  Lwow.  From  that  reply,  to  which  all  friends 
of  Slavdom  can  refer  for  inspiration,  I  should  like  to  quote  a  few 
sentences,  which  seem  in  point  at  this  time  and  can  as  well  be 
applied  to  the  relations  between  Germany  and  the  western  nations: 
".  .  .  To  a  great  part  of  the  German  peoples  the  interests  of  cul- 
ture have  always  been  associated  with  the  State  interest,  i.e.,  the 
State  interest  has  been  in  the  first  place.  They  carried  civilization 
to  the  Slavic  East  to  gain  for  themselves  political  advantages,  and 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  give  up  the  cause  of  culture  whenever  their 
own  egotistic  political  interests  required  some  sacrifice.  Politi- 
cians and  Germanizers,  in  a  higher  degree  than  civilizers,  they 
have  perpetually  identified  the  idea  of  culture  with  the  idea  of 
their  own  State  and  their  own  nationality;  they  believed  and  wished 
to  persuade  the  world — they  even  wanted  the  world  to  believe  them — 
that  the  way  to  civilization  leads  only  through  Germany,  and  that 
there  can  be  no  better  fortune  for  other  peoples  than  to  attain  by 
that  way  to  greater  perfection.  They  proclaimed  themselves  chosen 
guardians  of  all  who  began  to  engage  in  the  pursuits  of  culture 
later  than  themselves,  without  asking  whether  those  others  desired 
such  guardianship,  without  reflecting  that  they  could  work  for 
culture  independently,  having  been  endowed  by  God  with  the  same 
abilities  as  Germans.  .  .  .  The  Germans  offered  culture  to  the  Slavs 
usually  at  the  price  of  their  giving  up  the  greatest  treasure,  their 
own  nationality;  where  the  Slavs  would  not  pay  that  price,  the 
Germans  simply  obstructed  their  independent  development  and  did 
not  allow  them  to  carry  on  the  work  of  civilization.  .  .  .  German 
culture  is  neither  the  first,  nor  the  last,  nor  the  only  culture  which 
leads  to  perfection.  ..."  To  many  persons  unacquainted  with 


It  is  claimed  against  the  Slavs  that  they  are  nothing 
but  barbarians.  Sometimes  the  Germans  do  not  go  as  far 
as  all  that.  But  then  they  and  their  foreign  friends  (e.g., 
Professor  Burgess)  claim  that  the  Slavs  are  unfit  for  polit- 
ical development.  I  should  like  to  point  out  that  of  all 
European  nations,  Germany  has  the  least  right  to  reproach 
others  with  lack  of  political  ability.  Can  anybody  imagine 
a  greater  anarchy  than  that  which  existed  in  Germany  in 
the  later  Middle  Ages  and  well  into  the  nineteenth  century  ? 
Poland's  and  Russia's  disorganization  was  due  largely  to 
foreign  invasions.  Germany's  princes  often  combined 
among  themselves  or  with  foreign  princes  against  their  own 
emperor.  It  was  not  until  1870-1  that  Germany,  under 
the  new  leadership  of  Prussia,  began  to  show  real  political 
unity — and  whether  the  Prussian  domination  of  Germany 
has  been  a  success  is  just  now  a  somewhat  debatable  ques- 
tion. Nor  is  there  any  need  to  brag  about  the  German 
descent  of  the  Romanovs  (as  is  done,  e.g.,  by  Professor 
Burgess).  Whether  Russia  would  not  have  been  much 
happier  without  them  is  again  a  question  to  be  determined 
by  impartial  men. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  Slavs  are  unable  to  develop  a 
healthy  economic  organization.  Anybody  who  has  studied 
Bohemian  economic  life  under  Hapsburg  rule,  or  the  Polish 
economic  development,  will  have  formed  a  different  opinion. 
The  Germans  themselves  know  the  truth  about  the  matter. 
In  a  number  of  publications  they  exhort  one  another  to 
arm  themselves  against  the  danger  of  an  economic  conquest 
by  the  Slavs.12  The  Polish  cooperative  societies,  especially 

European  affairs  these  words  would  have  meant  nothing  until  the 
present  war  taught  everybody  what  German  methods  are.  The 
words  of  Professor  Balzer,  written  in  1897,  could  equally  well  have 
been  formulated  by  an  observer  of  German  behavior  during  the 
present  war.  There  is  method  in  it. 

12  Professor  Ludwig  Bernhard,  who  did  some  spying  among 
Polish  economic  organizations  in  Prussian  Poland  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Prussian  government,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  chair  at 
the  University  of  Berlin,  devotes  a  large  book  to  ''the  Polish  com- 
munity in  the  Prussian  State"  (Das  polnisclie  Gemeinwesen  im 
preussischen  Staate}  ;  Mr.  Georg  Cleinow  in  his  book  on  ' '  The 


25 


among  farmers,  can  well  serve  as  an  example  for  many 
western  countries — and  you  must  remember  that  they  have 
been  developed  in  the  teeth  of  government  opposition. 

The  Slavs  have  made  positive  contributions  to  the  civil- 
ization of  the  world.  Until  the  Turkish  conquest,  Serbia 
was  developing  in  a  most  promising  way.  In  the  field  of 
literature  she  can  claim  that  her  ballads  (some  of  them 
translated  recently  by  my  friends,  Professor  George  R. 
Noyes  and  Mr.  Leonard  Bacon)  deserve  a  high  place  among 
monuments  of  European  popular  poetry.  In  the  fourteenth 
century  her  political  development  was  higher  than  that  of 
many  a  European  nation,  for  instance,  the  code  of  Tsar 
Dushan  deserves  an  honorable  place  among  early  Euro- 
pean codifications.  And  look  at  Bohemia !  In  1347-8  there 
was  founded  in  Prague,  the  capital,  by  a  king  who  was  not 
a  German,  a  university,  which  was  the  first  in  central 
Europe.  Germany  had  no  university  at  that  time.  The 
second  university  in  central  Europe  was  that  of  Cracow 
(Poland,  1364),  and  only  the  third  was  the  German  uni- 
versity of  Vienna  (1365).  Then  were  founded  other  uni- 
versities in  Germany.  The  University  of  Prague  soon  be- 
came the  center  of  Bohemian  national  progress,  its  rector 
early  in  the  fifteenth  century  was  the  celebrated  reformer 
and  Bohemian  patriot,  Jan  Huss;  is  not  his  name  known 
to  every  civilized  man  and  woman  ?  Does  it  not  prove  that, 
while  she  was  left  independent,  Bohemia  was  able  to  pro- 
duce great  men?  And  then,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
came  the  great  Bohemian  reformer  of  education,  known  all 
over  Europe,  Komensky  (Comenius).  There  had  been 
many  great  men  in  the  meantime,  but  I  can  only  mention 

Future  of  Poland"  (Die  Zukunft  Polens}  studies  the  conditions  in 
Eussian  Poland;  there  are  numerous  other  books  on  the  subject. 
The  German  chancellor,  Prince  von  Billow,  said  in  1908:  "The  Polish 
element  has,  under  the  protection  of  our  statutes,  especially  in  the 
field  of  economics  developed  an  organization  which  is  astonishing 
because  of  its  consistent  elaboration  and  concentrated  leadership 
(deren  konsequente  Durchfiilirunfj  und  einheitliclie  Leitung  erstaunHch 
isf),  and  of  which  the  great  power  serves  always  and  everywhere 
the  purposes  of  the  political  struggle  against  the  German  element 
..."  (Hb'trsch,  Filrst  ron  Billow's  Eeden,  III,  62). 


26 

the  greatest  of  the  great.  And  then  Austrian  despotism 
put  an  end,  for  a  time,  to  Bohemian  progress.  Yet  pro- 
gress there  appeared  again  in  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  in  spite  of  all  obstacles.  It  has  never  abated  since. 
You  may  have  heard  of  Bohemian  music — the  Bohemians 
are  supposed  to  be  musically  the  ablest  among  the  subjects 
of  the  Hapsburgs.  You  do  not  know  of  many  first-class 
scholars  whom  Bohemia  has  produced,  such  as  Safarik, 
Palacky,  Kadlec,  and  others.  They  have  been  there,  how- 
ever. 

And  Russia  ?  Have  you  read  novels  by  Turgeniev,  and 
Dostoyevsky,  and  Tolstoy?  Have  you  heard  the  names  of 
Gorki  and  Tchekhov?  Do  you  know  the  music  of  Tshai- 
kovsky,  and  Rakhmaninov,  and  many  others?  Do  you 
know  a  scientist  who  needs  not  remember  what  the  world 
owes  to  Mendeleev  and  Metchnikov?  And  these  are  only 
a  few  names  which  I  take  to  be  most  widely  known.  There 
are  scores  upon  scores  of  others. 

Take  Poland.  In  the  thirteenth  century  a  Pole  (Vi- 
tellio)  wrote  the  first  modern  treatise  on  optics.  The  fif- 
teenth century  produced  a  great  development  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cracow,  and  one  of  its  professors  (Brudzewski) 
was  the  first  academic  teacher  of  astronomy  to  the  great 
Copernicus  (Kopernik),  who  was  himself  a  Pole  and  whose 
father  was  a  citizen  of  Cracow.  The  development  of  polit- 
ical thought,  of  letters  and  science,  in  sixteenth-century 
Poland  entitled  her  to  a  place  among  the  most  enlightened 
nations  in  Europe;  one  of  her  political  writers  (Andrzej 
Frycz  Modrzewski,  called  Modrevius)  was  the  author  of  a 
great  treatise  on  the  Reform  of  the  Republic,  the  German 
translation  of  which  was  the  first  exhaustive  treatise  on 
political  science  in  that  language !  Does  not  all  that  prove 
that  the  Poles,  too,  have  helped  develop  European  civil- 
ization ? 

And  without  mentioning  the  hundreds  of  names  which, 
though  great  in  themselves,  are  unknown  in  England  and 
America,  let  us  think  of  the  modern  Polish  novelist  Sien- 


27 


kiewicz,  of  the  pianist  Paderewski,  of  the  composers 
Chopin  and  Wieniawski,  of  the  chemist  Mme.  Curie- 
Sklodowska.  Much  work  done  by  Polish  scholars,  many 
works  of  art  and  literature,  produced  by  Polish  artists  and 
writers,  remain  unknown  to  the  west,  partly  because  of 
language  difficulties,  partly  because  the  Germans  have 
taught  the  English  and  the  Americans  that  there  is  no 
civilization  among  the  Slavs. 

Consider  the  history  of  Polish  political  institutions. 
How  much  blame  has  been  heaped  on  the  Poles  on  that 
score !  Undoubtedly  many  things  might  have  been  better 
than  they  were.  But  the  same  is  true  of  other  nations. 
Hardly  any  European  nation,  except  England,  can  boast 
of  a  glorious  continuity  of  political  progress.  The  external 
conditions  were  unfavorable  to  Polish  progress  in  the  sev- 
enteenth century  and  in  the  first  part  of  the  eighteenth, 
and  yet  there  were  many  attempts  at  reform,  attempts 
mostly  frustrated  by  foreign  intrigue,  sometimes  by  foreign 
force.  The  world  knows  now  that  where  there  is  a  free 
government,  agents  of  foreign  despots  can  make  use  of 
political  liberty  to  create  mischief.  That  was  true  of  Prus- 
sian and  Russian  agents  in  Poland.  Yet  even  the  old  Polish 
institutions  had  some  good  sides.  In  1772,  just  a  short 
time  before  the  first  partition,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  in 
response  to  a  Polish  request  for  suggestions  as  to  a  change 
of  the  Polish  constitution,  wrote  his  Considerations  on  the 
Government  of  Poland,  which  he  prefaced  with  the  follow- 
ing warning :  " .  .  .  Brave  Poles,  be  careful ;  be  careful 
lest,  wishing  to  be  too  well,  you  make  your  position  worse. 
Thinking  of  that  which  you  want  to  acquire,  do  not  forget 
that  which  you  can  lose.  Correct,  if  that  can  be,  the  bad 
sides  of  your  constitution ;  but  do  not  look  down  upon  that 
which  has  made  you  what  you  are.  ...  It  is  in  the  bosom 
of  that  anarchy  which  is  hateful  to  you  that  were  formed 
those  patriotic  minds  that  have  kept  from  you  the  yoke.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  say  that  things  should  be  left  as  they  are ;  but  I 
do  say  that  they  must  not  be  touched  save  with  extreme 


28 


circumspection.  At  this  moment  one  is  struck  by  abuses 
more  than  by  advantages.  The  time  will  come,  I  am  afraid, 
when  one  will  have  a  better  sense  of  these  advantages,  and 
unfortunately  that  will  be  when  they  will  have  been  lost."13 
The  Poles  realized  that  their  constitution  had  to  be 
changed  radically.  As  soon  as  the  political  situation  made 
it  possible,  a  new  constitution  was  proclaimed  on  May  3, 
1791.  It  was  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution.  Enlight- 
ened men  in  the  west  like  Burke,14  Horace  "Walpole  and 
others  were  enthusiastic  about  the  new  constitution,  which 
naturally  displeased  the  King  of  Prussia  and  his  German 
ally  on  the  Russian  throne.  They  procured  the  annihilation 
of  the  reform  work,  and  carried  out  the  second,  and  then 
the  third  partition  of  Poland.  But  the  Poles  have  ever 
since  been  looking  back  to  the  tradition  of  the  Third  of 
May,  with  the  firm  conviction  that  the  fall  of  Poland  was 
due  to  brute  force,  and  not  to  lack  of  political  genius  in 
the  Polish  nation.  It  took  a  long  time  before  western  schol- 
ars, under  the  influence  of  Germans  and  of  charlatans  like 
Thomas  Carlyle,15  acquiesced  in  the  opinion  that  Poland 

13  Gouvernent  de  Pologne,  chap.  1.  That  the  old  Polish  consti- 
tution, even  as  it  was,  presented  more  than  the  aspect  of  a  hopeless 
maze  of  political  stupidities  was  understood,  for  instance,  by  an 
impartial  German  investigator  of  the  old  school,  Hiippe  (Verfassung 
der  Bepublik  Polen,  1867,  p.  viii) :  ".  .  .  The  constitution  of  Poland 
did  not  show  political  development  at  its  height  .  .  .  yet  the  federal 
framework  .  .  .  has  proved  an  institution  of  lasting  value  (hat  sich 
bewiihrt).  And  because  the  Polish  state  was  not  cut  into  parts  by 
feudalism,  it  shows  unexpectedly  more  than  one  modern  quality.  .  .  ." 

i*  Edmund  Burke  wrote  in  1791  about  the  constitutional  reform 
in  Poland:  ".  .  .  In  contemplating  that  change,  humanity  has 
everything  to  rejoice  and  to  glory  in, — nothing  to  be  ashamed  of, 
nothing  to  suffer.  So  far  as  it  has  gone,  it  probably  is  the  most 
pure  and  defecated  public  good  which  ever  has  been  conferred  on 
mankind.  ...  To  add  to  this  happy  wonder,  this  unheard  of  con- 
junction of  wisdom  and  fortune,  not  one  drop  of  blood  was  spilled 
.  .  .  the  whole  was  effected  with  a  policy,  a  discretion,  an  unanimity 
and  secrecy,  such  as  have  never  been  before  known  on  any  occasion , 
but  such  wonderful  conduct  was  reserved  for  this  glorious  conspiracy 
in  favor  of  the  true  and  genuine  rights  and  interests  of  men.  .  .  ." 
(Works,  IV,  190  f.,  1869). 

is  Carlyle 's  invectives  against  Poland  and  Bohemia  were  based 
on  complete  lack  of  knowledge,  though  they  pretended  to  be  the 
result  of  historical  research. 


was  unable  to  govern  herself.  There  certainly  had  been  a 
time  when  Poland's  political  development  was  considered 
an  inspiration  for  mankind.10 

I  think  I  am  justified  in  claiming  that  despite  all  diffi- 
culties the  Slavs  have  always  been  aiming  at  progress  in 
civilization.  You  are  told,  and  truly  told,  that  there  are, 
for  instance,  in  Russia  many  persons  unable  to  read  and 
write.  Do  not  despise  the  Slavs  for  that.  Ask  whether 
the  Slavs  have  not  everywhere  (in  Russia  under  the  old 
bureaucracy,  in  Austria,  in  Hungary,  in  Prussia)  striven 
to  educate  the  poor,  to  organize  schools  and  reading  rooms ; 
whether  that  work  has  not  been  carried  on  often  in  the 
face  of  severe  threats  on  the  part  of  the  government.  In 
Prussia  there  have  been  until  the  present  day  innumerable 
prosecutions  of  Poles  for  "unauthorized  instruction"; 
Russia  under  the  old  regime  followed  the  example  of  the 
Prussian  cousin.  The  glorious  development  of  the  "So- 
ciety of  the  Popular  School"  in  Austrian  Poland  (T.  S.  L.) 
will  at  all  times  remain  the  boast  of  Polish  patriots  just 
because  of  the  great  popularity  of  the  institution,  its  ability 
to  gather  enthusiastic  workers  among  rich  and  poor  alike, 
and  the  efficiency  of  its  work.  The  work  of  Bohemian  and 
Serbian  organizations  will  similarly  be  remembered  with 
gratitude  in  days  to  come. 

In  days  to  come,  when  the  Slavs  will  be  free!  There 
is  a  danger  against  wrhich  I  want  to  warn  you.  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary  are  now  raising  the  cry  for  "no  an- 
nexations," "no  disintegration  of  Germany,"  "no  parti- 
tion of  Austria-Hungary."  They  are  taking  advantage  of 
your  lack  of  knowledge  of  European  affairs  to  make  you 
believe  that  England  or  France  wants  to  conquer  and 
oppress  parts  of  Germany.  That  is  absolutely  untrue. 
What  the  Allies  want  is  to  take  away  from  Germany  and 
from  the  Hapsburgs  those  territories  which  the  two  reac: 
tionary  powers  have  held  in  bondage  by  pure  force,  and 
which  are  alien  to  the  Teutonic  nationality.  So  far  as  the 


16  See,  e.g.,  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole,  XIV,  446;  XV,  45,  142. 


Slavs  are  concerned,  Germany  must  give  up  her  Polish 
provinces,  that  is,  the  provinces  of  Poznan  (Posen),  Silesia, 
West  Prussia  with  the  city  of  Gdansk,  parts  of  East  Prussia. 
Austria  must  give  up  Galicia.  Prussian  and  Austrian 
Poland  will  thus  be  united  with  Russian  Poland  and  form 
that  " united,  independent,  and  autonomous  Poland"  prom- 
ised by  President  Wilson.  Bohemia,  including  Moravia, 
and  other  parts  of  Austria  or  Hungary  inhabited  by  Bo- 
hemians (and  Slovaks),  must  be  made  independent.  Bosnia 
and  Herzegovina,  Crotia  and  Slavonia,  and  the  other  south- 
ern Slav  parts  of  Austria  or  Hungary  must  be  set  free  to 
form  part  of  the  great  southern  Slav  state.  The  Slavs  do 
not  want  to  form  great  conquering  empires.  They  want 
to  be  allowed  complete  freedom  in  developing  their  own 
national  life,  together  with  other  civilized  nations.  The 
days  of  autocracies,  the  days  of  governments  formed  and 
maintained  by  dynasties  and  in  the  interest  of  dynasties, 
are  over. 

I  should  like  to  appeal  to  you  to  get  acquainted  with 
the  problems  of  Slav  life.  You  will  find  a  great  field  for 
help  which  will  be  very  gratefully  received.  You  will  find 
probably  many  things  that  will  require  change,  but  I  feel 
that  you  will  also  find  a  great  many  things  worth  ap- 
preciating. 

Let  me  conclude  by  quoting  the  words  of  my  great 
teacher,  Professor  Vinogradoff,  a  Russian  who  is  today  the 
greatest  living  authority  on  English  legal  history.  He  is 
one  of  those  men  who  have  proved  to  the  world  that  the 
Slavs  can  help  promote  civilization.  "The  Slavs  must 
have  their  chance  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  the  date 
of  their  coming  of  age  will  mark  a  new  departure  in  the 
growth  of  civilization." 


I 

i 


THIS  BOOK 

OVERDUE. 


REC'D  LD 

NOV    81962 


Binder 

Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc. 

Stockton,  Calif. 
T.  M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


3  604  90 


D-377 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


